QUOTE: ...the force of the American destruction of Afghan targets has sent an unambiguous warning far beyond the war theater to a number of nations that continue to provide bases and training to terrorist groups. The warning is: this could happen to you...

QUOTE: airlines facing less competition at their major hubs may find it easier to raise fares and may feel less pressure to improve the poor service that was a focus of lawmakers' and consumers' concern a year or two ago.

QUOTE: The challenge being mounted against the main SAT exam by the president of the University of California has given an extraordinary lift to critics who have long considered the test an inappropriate and unfair measure of high school students.

QUOTE: A growing chorus on the left and the right is accusing the Bush administration of ignoring civil liberties while leaving the courts and Congress out in the cold as it aggressively pursues the war on terrorism here and abroad.

QUOTE: The ruling breaks new ground in international commerce and the Web....U.S. judges in the past have made rulings regarding what companies based outside the United States should be able to offer online in this country, but not on what U.S. Web companies can provide around the world...

QUOTE: Homeowners in northeastern Illinois had already been fretting about possible mercury leaks from a local gas company's meters, and the discovery of the toxic silvery beads inside the Fritz home last September seemed to confirm the worst fears.

QUOTE: ...the United States had given Russia an unofficial deadline of November to agree to changes in the Antiballistic Missile Treaty or face a unilateral American withdrawal from the arms control accord.

QUOTE: When Bayer A.G. announced earlier this month that it was withdrawing its fast-selling cholesterol-lowering drug from the market, it pleased officials at the United States Food and Drug Administration...

QUOTE: Worse...the hordes passing through  the Border Patrol said it once arrested more than 2,000 immigrants here in one 24-hour period  gave this city with a population of about 26,000 a negative image that kept families and visitors away.

QUOTE: Last week the International Monetary Fund...told the prosaic truth: "the long-term financing problems of Social Security are not large" and "could be addressed through relatively small adjustments in the program's parameters."

QUOTE: ...there will be some kind of international criminal court. It could be a good court, or a mediocre one, or genuinely dangerous. But the United States will not be able to affect the outcome if it is not involved in the process of establishing it....

QUOTE: ...the nation has been well served by the timely disclosure of information the government has been trying to keep secret. By subjecting such revelations to criminal penalties, even where no legitimate national security interests are involved....

QUOTE: ...proclamation signed by President Bill Clinton in January that turned this rugged, sparsely settled region dotted with cattle and nuclear missile silos into the Missouri Breaks National Monument...created at the end of his term.

QUOTE: Dr. Younus Shaikh...earned $89 a month at a small college on the second floor of a shopping plaza in Pakistan, was convicted there on Saturday and sentenced to death on charges of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad.

QUOTE: The issue's publication each year causes bitter rivalries among colleges and universities, which feel an effect in the number of applications each time the institutions rise or fall on the list.

QUOTE: ...withdrawing from air pollution lawsuits against power plants in the Midwest and South, people on both sides of the dispute say the Northeast states that have also sued will be hard-pressed to pursue the cases on their own.

QUOTE: ...clues to how the new Justice Department may administer the federal death penalty, the department is considering how to proceed against two men who have been charged in the execution-style murders of two college students.

QUOTE: ...President Bush has been quietly filling key subcabinet posts with conservative activists and industry lobbyists who have spent their careers criticizing the laws they are now sworn to uphold.

QUOTE: The S.E.C. has strengthened its investigations of revenue-recognition cases since its former chairman, Arthur Levitt, warned of what he called the erosion of the quality of financial reporting in corporate America.....